Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Insecure Writers Group

Today's the day for the Insecure Writer's Support Group monthly posting. The first Wednesday of every month is when it happens and there are a whole bunch of bloggers who participate. Anyone can join, so feel free to add your name to the list, or just hop around and read the different posts.

Click pic for the list of participants over at Alex J.Cavanaugh's blog.

So let's see.... where am I on my writing path ... Oh yeah! I just finished the first draft of my YA thriller and gosh darn it feels good! But now I'm going through this weird kind of love/hate relationship with it. I love that my characters have developed and my plot is pretty tight, but man I keep thinking, what the heck did I do??? No one is going to wanna read about this! Teens interested in historical documents that keep a huge political secret? They don't want to read about that, do they?

They want paranormal dystopian romances, for Pete's sake!

And then I think, well no .... that's not all true. I'd have read a story like this when I was a teen: a conspiratorial/ controversial Indiana Jones meets National treasure kind of tale full of adventuresome danger.

Yep, I'd have been all over it. But will the average teen today?? I dunno.

So you see what I mean?? I'm splat in the middle of my first round of revisions and digging my work, but questioning every step of the way.

That's where I'm at right now. And I have to apologize because my blogging has been the bare minimum these past few weeks while I'm trying to get my WIP ready for beta reads. I've been so consumed with it, and the holidays and kids, that I've neglected so many other blogs and there is nothing I can say to that, except something had to give.

I'll get caught up soon though. And I miss visiting so many of you. Those who comment here are always the first on my agenda to visit, and if I happened to miss you over the last few weeks, please accept my sincerest apology. I love you for stopping by here and your comments mean the world!

Tell me, how is your writing coming along? And do you ever go through a love/hate relationship with your work?

42 comments:

Tis the season to get behind, PK! I think most of us are in that boat.

The new story sounds exciting, and I'm nerdy enough to like the idea of browsing through historical documents. :) Of course I'm sadly nowhere near being a teen these days, so that might say it all. lol

I have the same problem with my book too. I guess we writers do have a lot of the same problems. It's really hard to know what is going to take off with readers. Publishing is like the stock market, nobody can really predict it, so it's best not to worry.

Ah, the love/hate relationship. If you write a book you would want to read, then that's probably the best thing you can do as an author. That love will shine, through, but I totally get the hate as well. I tend to go through the love/hate thing all the time with my manuscripts.

By the way, I would've loved (still love) to read the book you're talking about. I love things like that.

I think it sounds like a great story and I know Jess and her friends would read it!

I've already had people tell me that my novel I'm working on is not a genre people want to read... but I have to write it because that is what is inside me now. So hang in there... I believe if the story is great you'll get your readers.

I've been slacking on blogging over the holidays as well. One of my New Year's resolutions is to be better about visiting my buddies. :)

I was gone over the holidays, too, Pk, and so were many other bloggers, so please give yourself a break and don't worry about it. Sounds like you were productive and enjoyed the time with your family. Good luck with preparing your manuscript for beta readers. That's awesome. My writing hasn't happened for quite a while, but I'm going to give it a minimum of 10 minutes a day and see what happens.Karen

I think we all get behind over Christmas/New Year plus this year my book was finally published and released days before Christmas so I would not worry about getting behind with blogging we all understand how things are.

Ack... I think I'm stuck in a perpetual love/hate relationship with ALL my WIPs. Though, oddly, it seems to be more hate these days than love... but I think that's just the guilt of not working on them over the holidays. :)

How many teens are actually reading YA books anyway? I bet 75% of that market is actually full grown adults buying AND reading. And then maybe Mom or Dad will hand it to their adolescent kid afterwards. Seriously. I say keep going!

I'd like my MS to die in a fire, but it doesn't happen. It's still there, all its mistakes and errors glaring up at me from the page. I handle it better some days than others. But that's what revisions are for! Good for you for taking the time to get your WIP in shape! It takes an enormous amount of time.

As for missing you on blogging, believe me you're famous enough in the blog world to have spaces, and pick it up at any time you feel. We understand, writers really write inbewteen the spaces. I think many of us are doing this, savouring those spaces. After all, its been quite a holiday. Thanksgiving, Xmas stuff and New year.

Your writing comes first-right?

I think your book sounds good. And I'm sure you will iron out all you need to do, by the end.

Oh yeah, love and hate are both daily occurrence with me. Now that I've started querying, I can't help but beat myself up every day. But I try to remember the (many) times that I've fallen in love, again and again, with my story. Insecurity is an occupational hazard.

Happy New Year, PK! I think it's great for teens to have a wider selection than just paranormal romances to read and your manuscript sounds very interesting indeed. My book is also a non-paranormal YA - it's contemporary realistic fiction, and I definitely have a love/hate relationship with it. Right now, I'm wading through my beta readers' feedback and trying to decide what to take on board - always tricky! Best of luck with your revisions. :-)

I can totally relate to this, as my current WiP is so different from the usual paranormal romance genre that I worry teens won't be interested either. But I think to be good writers we have to write the kind of novels we would want to read ourselves. Our passion for the genre will shine through and enliven the writing, whereas if we think too much about marketing the book it can be obvious that we've jumped on the bandwagon of what's trending right now.

I can't speak for teens today, but I would certainly enjoy reading that kind of novel (I'm 22). It's sounds like it's in the same genre as The Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, Indiana Jones etc. and I do know a lot of teens that love that kind of thing.

I think teens would enjoy a good sort of espionage thriller. Why not? I mean, think of Ghost Protocol, the new Mission Impossible flick. I went to see it last night with my nineteen year old son and he sucked it in like chocolate cake. State secrets, hidden documents, the whole nine yards. A smart teen wants more than just a nice romance, methinks.

Hey, if the story is tight and the characters are relatable, they will read it. And with the turtle's pace publishing is moving at right now, dystopian stories will peter out and the editors will want something new.

I'm doing good...finally. I finished editing my WIP and had two critique partners read it. Both had lots to say and I listened. Then I got into a funk. I didn't hate my story, but man I avoided it like a plague. I knew it needed something, but wasn't sure exactly what so the idea of figuring that out was daunting.

Then a few ideas on how to fix it came to me in a dream and another writer critiqued my first chapter with lots of insight. I know have what I need to put the finishing touches on my WIP so I am doing great! Direction is a good thing. :)

I'm a thriller writer myself - adult this time, but went down the route of looking at popular genres. All of my writing buddies write YA, Fantasy or paranormal, but I enjoy those anyway.

I happen to have a daughter attending one of the private girls only schools in Sydney. The teens in that school are all way over the paranormal romances, and looking for more. Given the Hunger Games as a movie is due out early this year, it's easy to see a movement towards different genres writing around the whole good vs evil questions.

I think your idea sounds interesting, and paranormal dystopian romances are as dead as vampires ;) Okay, that was a really horrible joke, but I've been awake all night.

I DEFINITELY go through a love/hate relationship with my work... but maybe that's what makes the pull to write so strong, because there's such a tension in our sentiments. I see an Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy connection here, but I'm going to go to bed and stop making bad jokes and metaphors.

Good luck with WIP, I'm about at the same point, so I'm joining your site so I can follow along and hopefully learn something from your process as well!

Whelp. I just asked my 15 yr-old daughter if she'd be interested in reading a YA book about a historical document that keeps political secrets. Her response, "Yeah. Of course!" She once said to me, "Intelligent teens read a lot books, and we like smartly written stories."

My tween would go nuts for a book like that! She's loved The Hunger Games, HP, Alex Rider, all of Riordian's books, Kingdom Keepers books (& all of Pearon's books for that matter, too), Haddix books, Narnia . . . so I think it will appeal to girls too for sure:) Congrats & gOOd luCK!!

I'm always in a love/hate relationship with my writing. Right now, it's hate as I ran across a chapter that needed severe rewrite, and I thought I was all through with that. Great post. I needed to hear this.

Doesn't the "Hey, You're a Writer" Handbook list insecurity as the first requirement? I believe the love/hate relationship with your MS is the second requirement. My favorite writerly moment is when you go back to a story after a break and wonder of wonders, you still love it.